Charles  Josselyn 


THE 

IMMORTALITY 

OF 

THE    SOUL 


THE 

IMMORTALITY 

OF 

THE    SOUL 


BY 

SIR    OLIVER    LODGE 


BOSTON 
THE   BALL   PUBLISHING   CO. 


d 


Copyright,  igo8 

BY 
THE  BALL  PUBLISHING  Co. 


PREFACE 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  the  author  of  the 
essay  here  published,  is  deservedly  honored 
as  a  leader  in  the  scientific  world.  As  a 
physicist  he  is  recognized  as  an  authority  by 
the  materialistic  school  while  his  services 
as  an  active  member  of  the  English  Society 
for  Psychical  Research  entitle  him  to  equal 
honor  as  a  psychologist.  Any  opinion, 
therefore,  which  he  may  proffer  on  The 
Immortality  of  the  Soul  must  be  of  interest 
to  all. 

We  believe  that  the  author  has  never 
found  anything  in  scientific  research  that 
he  considered  inconsistent  with  Christian 
belief,  but  his  present  argument  is  founded 


61577'c 


PREFACE 

on  scientific  grounds  and  not  on  that  of 
Christian  dogma. 

The  substance  of  this  book  was  first 
given  to  the  -public  on  October  2jthy  fpo?, 
as  a  Drew  Lecture  in  connection  with 
Hackney  College.  This  college  was  founded 
in  1803  for  the  education  of  Ministers  of 
the  Congregational  Churches  and  is  now 
a  constituent  part  of  London  University. 
It  was  first  published  in  The  Hibbert 
Journal  for  January  and  April  of  1908. 


THE 

IMMORTALITY 

OF 

THE   SOUL 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF 
THE  SOUL 


THE  TRANSITORY  AND  THE 
PERMANENT 

"If  a  man  is  shut  up  in  a  house,  the  trans- 
parency of  the  windows  is  an  essential  condi- 
tion of  his  seeing  the  sky.  But  it  would  not 
be  prudent  to  infer  that,  if  he  walked  out  of 
the  house,  he  could  not  see  the  sky  because 
there  was  no  longer  any  glass  through  which 
he  might  see  it." 

DR.  MTAGGART,  in  his  book  called 
Some  Dogmas  of  Religion,  from 
which  I  have  taken  the  excellent  apo- 
logue prefixed  as  a  sort  of  motto  to 
this  article,  says  some  things  with 
which  I  am  not  able  wholly  to  agree. 
I  should  like  to  deal  with  these  at 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

greater  length  in  some  other  connex- 
ion, but  meanwhile  I  will  quote  one 
of  them.  In  his  chapter  on  Human 
Immortality  he  says  that  an  affirma- 
tive answer  to  the  question,  "Has 
man  an  immortal  soul?"  would  be 
absurd.  He  wishes  to  maintain  that 
man  is  a  soul  rather  than  that  he  has 
one;  because  the  possessive  case 
would  indicate,  he  says,  that  the  man 
himself  was  his  body,  or  was  some- 
thing that  died  with  the  body,  and 
that  he  owned  something,  not  him- 
self, which  at  death  was  set  free. 
But  if  we  make  the  correlative 


NOTE:  The  apologue  on  the  preceding 
page  must  not  be  understood  as  sustaining 
what  Mr.  Haldane  derisively  calls  the  "win- 
dow" theory  of  the  senses,  as  if  they  were 
apertures  through  which  an  inner  man  looked 
out  at  an  alien  universe:  a  parable  must  not 
be  pressed  unduly. 

2 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

statement,  and  say  that  "man  has  a 
body,"  surely  we  are  stating  an(ttn- 
deniable  truth.  And  as  to  what  the 
man  himself  is — I  appreheprl  f-K^t  fc» 
is^ a  union  of  spul  and  body;  and  that 
without  the  one  or  the  other  he  is  in- 
complete  jis  a  man,  and  becomes 
something  else — a  corpse  perhaps,  a 
^srmj^jpprhaps?  or  it  may  be  both. 
"But  whereas  the  two  were  necessa- 
rily united  during  the  man's  life, 
death  separates  them;  and  the  final 
product,  whateverTt  is,  can  be  de- 
scribed as  "man"  no  longer.  Hence 
the  form  of  the  question  preferred 
by  Dr.  M'Taggart,  "Are  men  im- 
mortal?" does  not  seem  to  me  so  ap- 
propriate as  the  more  popular  and 
antique  form.  "Is  the  soul  immor- 
tal?" For  surely  without  hesitation 
everybody  must  give  to  his  question, 
about  man,  the  answer:  "Not  whol- 

3 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

ly,"  or  "Not  every  part  of  him." 
Part  of  what  constitutes  human  na- 
ture is  certainly  mortal.  On  one  side 
man  undoubtedly  belongs  to  the  ani- 
ma*  kingdom,  and  flourishes  on  this 
planet,  the  Earth,  by  the  aid  of  par- 
tides  of  terrestrial  matter  which  he 
utilises  for  that  purpose. 

By  the  soul,  then,  we  must  mean 
that  part  of  man  which  is  dissociated 
from  the  body  at  death:  that  part 
which  is  characteristic  of  a  living 
man  as  distinct  from  a  corpse.  It 
may  be  said  that  it  is  really  more  an 
inter-relation  than  a  part,  and  that 
this  inter-relation  is  what  is  meant  by 
vitality;  so  that  it  can  be  roundly  as- 
serted that  the  apparently  disap- 
peared "vitality"  is  a  nonentity  or 
figment  of  the  imagination,  and  that 
to  speak  of  it  as  still  existing  is  like 
speaking  of  the  "horologity"  of  a 
4 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

clock  which  someone  has  smashed 
with  a  hammer. 

Very  well,  admitting  that  vitality 
is  a  mere  relation  between  the  body 
and  something  else,  it  is  just  the  na- 
ture of  this  "something  else"  that  we 
are  discussing;  and  it  is  no  help  to 
start  by  assuming  that  this  dissoci- 
ated and  perhaps  imaginary  portion 
is  the  man  himself,  any  more  than  it 
is  helpful  to  start  with  the  equally 
gratuitous  assumption  that  the  visible 
and  tangible  body  is  the  man  him- 
self. 

The  vanished  constituent  with  its 
attributes  may  turn  out  to  be  more 
intimately  characteristic  of,  and  es- 
sential to,  the  man's  real  nature  and 
existence,  than  is  the  material  instru- 
ment or  organ  which  has  been  dis- 
carded without  having  disappeared : 
they  may  turn  out  to  have  a  more 
5 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

permanent  and  therefore  a  more  real 
existence  than  the  temporary  vehicle 
which  served  to  manifest  those  attri- 
butes and  properties  during  their 
short  tenure  of  earth  life ;  they  may 
be  more  especially  the  seat  of  his 
personality  and  individuality; — but 
those  are  just  the  things  which  are 
subject-matter  for  debate,  and  they 
must  not  be  postulated  a  priori. 

As  a  matter  of  nomenclature,   I 
want   to    discriminate   between    the 
$erm  "vitality"  and  the  term  "life" ; 
to   use  the  former  as  signifying  a 
union  or  relation  between  the  body 
and  something  else,  and  the  latter  to 
enote  the  unknown  entity  which  by 
iteraction  with  material  particles  is 
responsible  for  their  vitality.     True, 
^of^Jife,  thus  defined,  is  a  portion  or  par- 

^C>****"V    "al  ajyj££t°f  w^at  *s  °^ten  spoken  of 
as  "soul^but  the  term  life  can  be 
6 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

used  by  many  to  whom  some  of  the 
associations  of  the  more  comprehen- 
sive term  are  objectionable. 

The  first  simple  and  important 
truth  that  must  be  insisted  on,  is  the 
commonplace  but  often  ignored  and 
even  denied  fact,  that  there  is  noth- 
ing immortal  or  persistent  about  the 
material  instrument  of  our  present 
senses,  except  the  atoms  of  which  it 
is  composed. 

Any  notion  that  these  same  atoms 
will  be  at  some  future  date  re-col- 
lected  and  united  with  the  dissoci- 
ated  and  immaterial  portion,  so  as  to 
constitute  once  more  the  complete 
man  as  he  appeared  here  on  earth, 
who  is  thereafter  to  last  for  ever, — 
any  notion  of  that  sort,  though  most 
unfortunately  believed,  or  at  least 
taught,  by  one  great  branch  of  the  iri^jHir 
Christian  Church,  is  a/Superstition^*  ~ 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

not  by  any  means  yet  really  and  thor- 
oughly extinct  or  without  influence 
on  sentiment,  even  in  quarters  where 
it  may  be  denied  in  words.  It  is  too 
much  to  expect  that  it  should  be  so 
extinct 

Nevertheless,  the  teaching  of  nat- 
ural science  is  in  accordance  with  the 
teaching  of  common  sense  in  this 
matter.  The  present  body(is)wholly 
composed  of  terrestrial  particles;  it 
consists  of  atoms  of  matter  collected 
from  food  and  air,  and  arranged  in  a 
certain  complicated  and  character- 
istic form.  The  elemental  atoms  are 
first  combined  into  the  complex  ag- 
gregate called  protoplasm,  which  is 
an  unstable  compound  whose  chem- 
ical constitution  is  at  present  un- 
known, but  whose  property  it  is  to  be 
always  in  a  state  of  flux:  it  is  not 
rigid  or  stagnant  or  fixed,  but  is  con- 
8 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

stantly  breaking  down  into  simpler 
constituents,  on  one  side,  and  con- 
stantly being  renewed  or  built  up,  on 
the  other,  so  that  it  has  a  kind  of  life- 
history,  for  a  certain  period.  This 
period  of  activity,  in  any  given  case, 
lasts  as  long  as  the  balance  between 
association  and  dissociation  contin- 
ues. While  the  balance  is  tilting  in 
favour  of  assimilation,  we  have  the 
period  of  youth  and  growth;  when 
the  balance  begins  to  tilt  in  favour  of 
disintegration,  we  have  the  com-S. 
mencement  of  old  age  and  decay;  un-  ^j* 
til  at  a  certain,  or  rather  an  uncer 
tain  stage,  the  disintegrating  forces 
gain  a  final  victory,  and  assimilation 
wholly  and  sometimes  suddenly 
ceases.  Then  presently  and  by  slow 
degrees  the  residue  of  protoplasm 
left  in  the  body — unless  it  is  speedily 
incorporated  into  some  other  animal 
9 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

or  plant — is  resolved  into  simpler 
and  simpler  compounds,  and  ulti- 
mately into  inorganic  constituents; 
and  so  is  restored  to  mother  Earth, 
whence  it  sprang. 

What,  then,  can  be  legitimately 
meant  by  the  phrase  Resurrection  of 
the  body?  Well,  it  is  highly  desir- 
able to  disentangle  the  element  of 
truth  which  underlies  ancient  beliefs 
and  is  the  condition  of  their  durabil- 
ity; and,  whatever  may  be  the  case 
with  other  forms  of  religion,  it  is 
clear  that  Christianity  both  by  its 
doctrines  and  its  ceremonies  rightly 
emphasises  the  material  aspect  of  ex- 
istence. For  it  is  founded  upon  the 
idea  of  Incarnation ;  and  its  belief  in 
some  sort  of  bodily  resurrection  is 
based  on  the  idea  that  every  real  per- 
sonal existence  must  have  a  double 
aspect — not  spiritual  alone  nor  phys- 
io 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

ical  alone,  but  in  some  way  both. 
Such  an  opinion,  in  a  refined  form, 
is  common  to  many  systems  of  phi- 
losophy, and  is  by  no  means  out  of 
harmony  with  science. 

Christianity,  therefore,  reasonably 
supplements  the  mere  survival  of  a 
discarnate  spirit,  a  homeless  wander- 
er or  melancholy  ghost,  with  the 
warm  and  comfortable  clothing  of 
something  that  may  legitimately  be 
spoken  of  as  a  "body" ;  that  is  to  say, 
it  postulates  a  supersensually  appre- 
ciable vehicle  or  mode  of  manifesta- 
tion, fitted  to  subserve  the  needs  of 
future  existence  as  our  bodies  sub- 
serve the  needs  of  terrestrial  life:  an 
ethereal  or  other  entity  constituting 
the  persistent  "other  aspect,"  and  ful- 
filling some  of  the  functions  which 
the  atoms  of  terrestrial  matter  are 
constrained  to  fulfil  now.  And  we 
ii 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

may  assume,  as  consonant  with  or 
even  as  part  of  Christianity,  the  doc- 
trine of  the  dignity  and  sacramental 
character  of  some  physical  or  quasi- 
material  counterpart  of  every  spirit- 
ual essence. 

But  though  some  such  connexion 
is  essential,  any  actual  instance  of  it 
may  be  accidental  and  temporary. 
Take  our  present  incarnation  as  an 
example.  We  display  ourselves  to 
mankind  in  the  garb  of  certain 
clothes,  artificially  constructed  of  an- 
imal and  vegetable  materials,  and  in 
the  form  of  a  certain  material  organ- 
ism, put  together  by  processes  of 
digestion  and  assimilation,  and  like- 
^XAcXvdse  composed  of  terrestrial  mate- 
°pT*m  rials.  The  source  of  these  chemical 
compounds  is  evidently  not  impor- 


l 


tant;  nor  *s  their  special  character 
i^Vo  maintained.     Whether  they  formed 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

part  of  sheep  or  birds  or  fish  or 
plants,  they  are  assimilated  and  be- 
come part  of  us;  being  arranged  by 
our  subconscious  activities  and  vital 
processes  into  appropriate  form,  just 
as  truly  as  other  materials  are  con- 
sciously woven  into  garments,  no 
matter  what  their  origin.  More- 
over, just  as  our  clothes  wear  out  and 


require  aarnmgjiid^a]£nmgljo_oui^^ 
bodies  wear  outiTthe  particles  are  in 
continual  flux,  each  giving  place  to 
others  and  being  constantly  discarded 
and  renewed.  The  identity  of  the 
actual  or  instantaneous  body  is  there- 
fore an  affair  of  no  importance:  the 
body  which  finally  dies  is  no  more 
fully  representative  of  the  individual 
than  any  of  the  other  bodies  which 
have  gradually  been  discarded  en 
route:  there  is  no  reason  why  it 
should  persist  any  more  than  they: 
13 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

the  individuality,  if  there  is  one, 
must  lie  deeper  than  any  particular 
body,  and  must  belong  to  whatever 
it  is  which  put  the  particles  together 
in  this  shape  and  not  another. 

There  is  nothing  at  all  similar  to 
this  automatic  decay  and  replace- 
ment,  this  preservation  of  form  amid 
diversity  of  particles,  in  the  mechan- 
:  ism  of  a  clock.  All  that  its  horo- 
logity  could  mean  would  be  the 
special  assemblage  or  grouping  of 
parts  which  enables  it  to  fulfil  cer- 
tain functions,  till  it  wears  out,  or  so 
long  as  its  worn  parts  are  periodic- 
ally replaced  by  the  clockmaker. 
The  "vitality"  of  an  organism  means 
this  and  more,  for  it  can  replace  its 
own  worn  parts.  A  clock  has  noth- 
ing of  personal  identity,  it  is  not  a 
good  illustration  of  a  living  organ- 
ism. The  identity  of  a  river  is  a 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

much  closer  analogy;  and  many  are 
the  associations  which  have  accord- 
ingly gathered  round  the  names  "Ti- 
ber," "Ganges,"  "Nile."  Rivers 
have  always  had  attributed  to  them  a 
kind  of  poetic  personality,  though  no 
one  can  have  really  supposed  them  to 
possess  genuine  life. 

I  wish  here  to  make  a  short  digres- 
sion in  order  to  say  that  the  old  and 
true  statement  that  "everything  flows 
and  nothing  is  stagnant,"  thus  con- 
spicuously exemplified  by  the  mate- 
rial basis  of  life,  need  not  in  the  least 
signify,  as  it  is  sometimes  taken  to 
signify,  that  everything  is  evanescent 
and  nothing  is  permanent;  still  less 
that  everything  is  fanciful  and  noth- 
ing is  real.  The  ancient  aphorism 
of  the  inspired  Heraclitus  makes  a 
statement  about  existence  which  is 
vitally  and  comprehensively  true; 
15 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

and  it  is  a  truth  which  constitutes  the 
keynote  of  evolution. 

To  return.  The  more  frankly  and 
clearly  the  truth  about  the  body  is 
realised,  viz.  that  the  body  is  a  flow- 
ing and  constantly  changing  episode 
in  material  history,  having  no  more 
identity  than  has  a  river,  no  identity 
whatever  in  its  material  constitution, 
but  only  in  its  form, — identity  only 
in  the  personal  expression  or  mani- 
festion  which  is  achieved  through  the 
agency  of  a  fresh  and  constantly  dif- 
fering sequence  of  material  particles, 
— the  more  frankly  all  this  is  rea- 
lised, the  better  for  our  understand- 
ing of  most  of  the  problems  of  life 
and  being. 

The  body  is  the  instrument  or  oj;- 
£i#  of  the  soul:  and  in  its  special 
form  and  aggregation  is  certainly 

^Xft^  ^f^. 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

temporary, — exceedingly  temporary, 
for  in  the  most  durable  cases  it  lasts 
only  about  a  thousand  months — a 
mere  instant  in  the  life-history  of  a 
planet. 

But  if  the  body  is  thus  trivial  and 
temporary,  though  while  it  lasts  most 
beautiful  and  useful  and  wonderful, 
what  is  it  that  puts  it  together  and 
keeps  it  active  and  retains  it  fairly 
constant  through  all  the  vicissitudes 
of  climate  and  condition,  and 
through  all  the  fluctuations  of  mate- 
vrial  constitution? 

For  remember  that  we  are  now  not 
dealing  with  the  human  body  alone. 
All  animals  have  bodies,  and  so  have 
plants.  All  that  has  been  said,  of 
the  temporary  character  of  the  mate- 
rial aggregate  animated  by  life,  ap- 
plies to  a  vast  variety  of  organisms, 
17 


i 

THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

many  of  which  can  be  encountered 
on  the  earth:  not  to  speak  of  the 
myriads  of  other  worlds. 

What  causes  the  very  same  par- 
ticles to  be  incorporated  first  into  the 
form  of  a  blade  of  grass,  then  into 
the  form  of  a  sheep,  then  into  the 

form  of  a  man;  then  into.the  form  of 
^  _  <r.^  Jlcr^  P^&^JH££ 
some    Q£W    invertebrates  —  "politic 

worms''  (for  whose  existence,  how- 
ever, in  normal  cases  there  is,  I  be- 
lieve, no  biological  authority), — then 
perhaps  into  a  bird,  then  once  more 
into  vegetation — perhaps  a  tree? 
What  is  it  that  combines  and  ar- 
ranges the  particles,  so  that  if  ab- 
sorbed by  root  or  leaves  they  corre- 
spond to  and  form  the  tissue  of  an 
oak,  if  picked  up  by  talons,  they  help 
to  feed  the  muscles  of  an  eagle,  if 
cooked  for  dinner,  they  enter  into  the 
nerves  and  brain  of  a  man?  What  is 
18 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

the  controlling  entity  in  each  case, 
which  causes  each  to  have  its  own 
form  and  not  another,  and  preserves 
the  form  constant  amid  the  wildest 
diversity  of  particles ? 


^ 


We  call  it  life,  we  call  it  soul,  we 
call  it  by  various  names,  and  we  do 
not  know  what  it  is.  But  common 
sense  rebels  against  its  being  "noth- 
ing" ;  nor  has  any  genuine  science  ^ 
presumed  to  declare  that  it  is  purely 
imaginary.  *~o  H^ 

Let  us  now,  therefore^Jry  to  define 
what  we  mean  by  '(^oul^"  though  in 
our  necessary  ignorance  ^eTask  is 
not  easy.     The  term  is  indeed  so  amA 
biguous  that  many  may  think  it  is  * 
better  avoided  altogether;  but  the 
more  precise  term  "mind"  is  too  nar- 
row and  exclusive  for  our  present 
purpose. 

The  following  definition  may  suf- 

{A, A(ni4s 

I 


/ 
iA>^L 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

ficiently  represent  my  present  mean- 
ing:— The  soul  is  that  controlling 
and  guiding  principle  which  is  re- 
sponsible for  our  personal  expression 
and  for  the  construction  of  the  body, 
under  the  restrictions  of  physical 
^ton'dition  and  ancestry.  In  its  high- 
er development  it  includes  also  feel- 
ing and  intelligence  and  will,  and  is 
the^sjorehouse  of  metal  experience, 
e  body  is  its  instrument  or  organ, 
enabling  it  to  receive  and  to  convey 
physical  impressions,  and  to  affect 
and  be  affected  by  matter  and  en- 
ergy. 

When  the  body  is  'destroyed,  there- 
fore, the  soul  disappears  from  phys- 
ical ken;  when  the  body  is  impaired, 
its  function  is  interfered  with,  and 
the  soul's  physical  reaction  becomes 
feeble  and  unsatisfactory.  Thus  has 
arisen  the  popular  misconception 
20 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

that  the  soul  of  a  slain  person  or  of 
a  cripple  or  paralytic  has  been  de- 
stroyed or  damaged;  whereas  only 
its  instrument  of  manifestation  need 
have  been  affected.  The  kind  of 
evils  which  really  assault  and  hurt 
the  soul  belong  to  a  different  cate- 
gory. 

It  may  be  said  that,  in  so  far  as 
soul  is  responsible  for  bodily  shape, 
soul  seems  identical  with  the  prin- 
ciple of  life,  and  that  all  living 
things  must  possess  some  rudiment 
of  soul. 

Well,  for  myself,  I  do  not  see  how 
to  draw  a  hard  and  fast  distinction 
between  one  form  of  life  and  an- 
other. All  are  animated  by  some- 
thing which  does  not  belong  to  the 
realm  of  physics  and  chemistry,  but 
lies  outside  their  province,  though 
it  interacts  with  the  material  entities 

21 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

of  their  realm.  Life  is  not  matter, 
nor  is  it  energy,  it  is  a  guiding  and 
directing  principle;  and  when  con- 
sidered as  incorporated  in  a  certain 
organism,  it,  and  all  that  appertains 
to  it,  may  well  be  called  the  soul  or 
constructive  and  controlling  element 
in  that  organism. 

The  soul  in  this  sense  is  related  to 
the  organism  in  somewhat  the  same 
way  as  the  "Logos"  is  related  to  the 
universe ;  it  is  that  without  which  it 
does  not  exist, — that  which  vivifies 
and  constructs,  or  composes  and  in- 
forms, the  whole. 

Moreover,  in  the  higher  organ- 
isms, the  soul  conspicuously  has  lofty 
potentialities;  it  not  only  includes 
what  is  connoted  by  the  term 
"mind,"  but  it  begins  to  acquire  some 
of  the  character  of  "spirit";  by 
which  means  it  becomes  related  to 
22 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

the  Divine  Being.  Soul  appears  to 
be  the  link  between  "spirit"  and 
"matter";  and,  according  to  its 
grade,  it  may  be  chiefly  associated 
with  one  or  with  the  other  of  these 
two  great  aspects  of  the  universe. 

Now  let  us  consider  what  is  meant 
by  Immortality.  Is  there  anything 
that  is  not  subject  to  death  and  an- 
nihilation? Can  we  predicate  im- 
mortality about  anything?  Every- 
thing is  subject  to  change,  but  are 
all  things  subject  to  death?  With- 
out change  there  could  be  no  activ- 
ity, and  the  universe  would  be  stag- 
nant; but  without  death  it  is  not  so 
clear  that  its  progress  would  be  ob- 
structed; unless  death  be  only  a  sort 
of  change. 

But  is  it  not  a  sort  of  change? 
Consider  some  examples : — When  a 
23 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

piece  of  coal  is  burnt  an'd  brought 
to  an  apparent  end,  the  particles 
of  long-fossilised  wood  are  not  de- 
stroyed; they  enter  into  the  atmos- 
phere as  gaseous  constituents,  and  the 
long-locked-up  solar  energy  is  re- 
leased from  its  potential  form  and 
appears  once  more  as  light  and  heat. 
The  burning  of  the  coal  is  a  kind  of 
resurrection;  and  yet  it  is  a  kind  of 
death  too,  and  to  the  superficial  eye 
nothing  is  left  but  ashes. 

Take  next  the  destruction  of  a  pic- 
ture or  a  statue,  let  it  be  torn  to 
pieces  or  smashed  to  powder:  there 
is  nothing  to  suggest  resurrection 
about  that,  and  the  beautiful  form 
embodied  in  the  material  has  disap- 
peared. 

Such  a  dissolution  is  a  more  se- 
rious matter,  and  mayJXethP1  result 
of  a  really  malicious  act.  It  is  per- 
24 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

haps  the  nearest  approach  to  gen- 
uine destruction  that  is  possible  to 
man,  and  in  some  cases  represents 
the  material  concomitant  of  a  hid- 
eous crime.    True,  nothing  mate  ria 
is  destroyed,  the  particles  weigh  just^  $ 
as  much  as  before;  yet  the  expres- 
sion  is  gone,  the  beauty  is  defaced, 
an  idea  perhaps  is  lost. 

But,  after  all,  the  idea  was  never 
really  in  the  marble  or  in  the  pig- 
ments ;  it  was  embodied  or  incarnate 
or  displayed  by  them,  in  a  sense,  but 
it  was  not  really  there.  It  was  in 
the  mind  of  the  artist  who  con- 
structed the  work,  and  it  entered  the 
mind  of  the  spectators  who  beheld 
it, — at  least  of  those  who  had  the 
requisite  perceptive  faculty;  but  it 
was  never  in  the  stone  at  all.  The 
inert  material,  from  the  impress  of 
mind  it  had  received,  was  able  to 
25 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

call  out  and  liberate  in  a  kindred 
mind  some  of  the  original  feelings 
and  thoughts  which  had  gone  to 
fashion  it.  Without  a  perceptive 
faculty,  without  a  sympathetic  mind, 
the  material  was  powerless.  Set  up 
in,  or  sent  to,  a  world  inhabited  only 
by  lower  animals,  it  would  convey 
no  message  whatever,  it  would  be 
wholly  meaningless;  just  as  a  piece 
of  manuscript  would  be,  in  such  a 
world,  though  it  contained  the  di- 
vinest  poem  ever  written. 

Nevertheless,  by  the  supposed  act 
of  vandalism  a  certain  incarnation  of 
beauty  has  been  lost  to  the  world. 
Though  even  so  it  is  not  destroyed 
out  of  the  universe:  it  remains  the 
possession  of  the  artist  and  of  those 
privileged  to  feel  along  with  him. 

Consider  next  the  destruction  of  a 
tree  or  of  an  animal.  Here  again 
26 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

the  particles  remain  as  many  as  be- 
fore, it  is  only  their  arrangement 
that  is  altered;  the  matter  is  con- 
served but  has  lost  its  shape;  the 
energy  is  constant  in  quantity  but  has 
changed  its  form.  What  has  disap- 
peared? The  thing  that  has  disap- 
peared  is  the  life — the  >^f^which_  a]> 
peared  to  be  in  the  tree  or  the  animal, 
the  life  which  had  composed  or  con- 
structed it  by  aid  of  sunshine  and  at- 
mosphere, and  was  manifested  by  it. 
Its  incarnate  form  has  now  gone — 
no  more  will  that  life  be  displayed 
amidst  its  old  surroundings,  it  has 
disappeared  from  our  ken;  appar- 
ently it  has  disappeared  from  the 
planet.  Has  it  gone  out  of  existence 
altogether? 

If    it   were    really    generated    de 
novo,  created  out  of  nothing,  at  the 
birth  of  the  animal  or  of  the  tree, 
27 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

we  should  be  entitled  to  assume  that 
at  death  it  may  have  returned  to  the 
nonentity  whence  it  came. 

But  why  nonentity?  What  do 
we  know  of  nonentity?  Is  it  a 
reasonable  or  conceivable  idea?  ft 
Things  when  the1 
«J,ddenr-^  And  so 

,-readily  intelligible  that  some  (^exist- 
ence, some  bodily  presentation,  cai 
b^  evoked  out  of  a  hidden  or  impei 
ceptible  or  latent  or  potential  exist1 
ence,  and  be  made  actual  and  per- 
ceptible and  what  we  call  real.  In- 
stances of  that  sort  are  constantly 
occurring.  It  occurs  when  a  com- 
oser  produces  a  piece  of  music,  it 
ccurs  when  an  artisan  constructs  a 
ce  of  furniture,  it  occurs  when  a 
spider  spins  a  web,  and  when  the  at- 
mosphere deposits  dew.  But  what 
example  can  we  think  of  where  ex- 
28  ^ 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

istence  is  created  out  of  nonentity, 
where  nothing  turns  into  something? 
We  can  think  of  plenty  of  examples 
of  change  of  organisation,  of  some- 
thing apparently  complex  and  high- 
ly developed  arising  out  of  a  germ 
apparently  simple ;  but  there  must  al- 
ways be  at  least  a  seed,  or  nothing 
will  arise;  nothing  can  come  out  of 
nothing:  something  must  always  have 
its  origin  in  something. 

A  radium  atom  is  an  element  pos- 
sessing in  itself  the  seeds  of  its  own 
destruction.  Every  now  and  then  it 
explodes  and  fires  off  a  portion  of 
itself.  This  can  occur  several  times 
in  succession,  and  finally  it  seems  to 
become  inert  and  to  cease  to  be  ra- 
dium or  anything  like  it;  it  is 
thought  by  some  to  have  become 
lead,  while  the  particles  thrown  off 
have  become  helium,  or  occasionally 
29 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

neon,  or  sometimes  argon.  Let  us 
suppose  that.  We  cannot  stop 
there,  we  are  bound  to  go  on  to  ask 
what  was  the  origin  of  the  radium 
itself.  If  it  explode  itself  to  pieces 
in  the  course  of  a  few  thousand 
years,  why  does  any  radium  still 
exist?  How  is  it  being  born?  Does 
it  spring  into  existence  out  of  noth- 
ing, or  has  it  some  parent?  And  if 
it  has  a  parent,  what  was  the  origin 
of  that  parent? 

Never  in  physical  science  do  we 
surmise  for  a  moment  that  something 
suddenly  springs  into  being  from 
previous  non-existence.  All  that  we 
perceive  can  be  accounted  for  by 
changes  of  aggregation,  by  assem- 
blage and  dispersion.  Of  material 
aggregates  we  can  trace  the  history, 
as  we  can  trace  the  history  of  con- 
tinents and  islands,  of  suns  and 
30 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

planets  and  stars ;  we  can  say,  or  try 
to  say,  whence  they  arose  and  what 
they  will  become;  but  never  do  we 
state  that  they  will  vanish  into  noth- 
ingness, nor  do  we  ever  conjecture 
that  they  arose  from  nothing. 

It  is  true  that  in  religion  we  seek 
to  trace  things  farther  back  still,  and 
ultimately  say  that  everything  arose 
from  God;  and  there,  perforce,  our 
chain  of  existence,  our  links  of  ante- 
cedence and  sequence  must  cease. 
But  to  allow  such  a  statement  to  act 
as  an  intellectual  refuge  can  only  be 
a  concession  to  human  infirmity. 
Everything  truly  arose  from  God; 
but  there  is  nothing  specially  il- 
luminating in  such  a  statement  as 
that,  for  everything  is  in  God  now; 
and  everything  will  continue  to  be 
animated  and  sustained  by  God  to 
all  eternity.  It  is  not  legitimate  ex- 
Si 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

plicitly  to  introduce  the  idea  of  God 
to  explain  the  past  alone;  the  term 
applies  equally  to  the  present  and  to 
the  future. 

So  the  assertion  just  made,  though 
true  enough,  is  only  a  mode  of  say- 
ing that  what  was  in  the  beginning, 
is  now,  and  ever  shall  be,  world 
without  end.  This  is  a  religious 
mode  of  expressing  our  conviction  of 
the  uniformity  of  the  Eternal  Char- 
acter, but  it  is  not  a  statement  which 
adds  to  our  scientific  information. 
We  may  not  be  able  to  understand 
Nature,  we  are  certainly  unable  to 
comprehend  God.  If  we  say  that 
Nature  is  an  aspect  of  the  Divine 
Being,  we  must  be  speaking  truly; 
but  that  only  strengthens  our  present 
argument  as  to  its  durability  and 
permanence,  for  we  shall  certainly 
not  thus  be  led  to  attribute  to  any- 
32 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

thing  so  qualified  any  power  of 
either  jumping  into  or  jumping  out 
of  existence.  To  make  the  statement 
that  Nature  is  an  aspect  of  the  God- 
head is  explicitly  to  postulate  eternity 
for  every  really  existing  thing,  and 
to  say  that  we  call  death  is  not  an- 
nihilation but  only  change.  Birth 
is  change.  Death  is  change.  A 
happy  change,  perhaps;  a  melan- 
choly change,  perhaps.  That  all  de- 
pends upon  circumstances  and  spe- 
cial cases,  and  on  the  point  of  view 
from  which  things  are  regarded; 
but,  anyhow,  an  inevitable  change. 

I  want  to  make  the  distinct  asser- 
tion that  no  really  existing  thing 
perishes,  but  only  changes  its  form. 

Physical  science  teaches  us  this, 

clearly   enough,    concerning   matter 

and  energy:  the  two  great  entities 

with  which  it  has  to  do.     And  there 

33 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

is  no  likelihood  of  any  great  modifi- 
cation in  this  teaching.  It  may,  per- 
haps, be  induced  in  the  long  run  to 
modify  the  form  of  statement  and  to 
assert  conservation  and  real  exist- 
ence of  ether  and  motion  (or,  per- 
haps only,  of  ether  in  motion)  rather 
than  of  matter  and  energy.  That  is 
quite  possible,  but  the  apparent  va- 
riation of  statement  is  only  a  variant 
in  form;  its  essence  and  meaning  are 
the  same,  except  that  it  is  now  more 
general  and  would  allow  even  the 
atoms  of  matter  themselves  to  have 
their  day  and  cease  to  be;  being  re- 
solved, perhaps,  into  electricity,  and 
that  into  some  hitherto  unimagined 
mode  of  motion  of  the  ether.  But 
all  this  is  far  from  being  accepted 
at  present,  and  need  not  here  be  con- 
sidered. 

The   distinction  between  what  is 
34 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

transitory  and  what  is  permanent  is 
quite  clear.  Evanescence  is  to  be 
stated  concerning  every  kind  of  "sys- 
tem" and  aggregation  and  grouping. 
A  crowd  assembles,  and  then  it  dis- 
perses: it  is  a  crowd  no  more.  A 
cloud  forms  in  the  sky,  and  soon 
once  more  the  sky  is  blue  again;  the 
cloud  has  died.  Dew  forms  on  a 
leaf:  a  little  while,  and  it  has  gone 
again — gone  apparently  into  noth- 
ingness, like  the  cloud.  But  we 
know  better,  both  for  cloud  and  dew. 
In  an  imperceptible  form  it  was, 
and  soon  into  an  imperceptible  form 
it  will  again  have  passed;  but  mean- 
while there  is  the  dewdrop  glisten- 
ing in  the  sun,  reflecting  all  the 
movements  of  the  neighbouring 
world,  and  contributing  its  little 
share  to  the  beauty  and  the  service- 
ableness  of  creation. 
35 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

Its  perceptible  or  incarnate  exist- 
ence is  temporary.  As  a  drop  it  was 
born,  and  as  a  drop  it  dies;  but  as 
aqueous  vapour  it  persists:  an  in- 
trinsically imperishable  substance, 
with  all  the  properties  persisting 
which  enabled  it  do  condense  into 
drop  or  cloud.  Even  it,  therefore, 
has  the  attribute  of  immortality. 

So,  then,  what  about  life?  Can 
that  be  a  nonentity  which  has  built 
up  particles  of  carbon  and  hydrogen 
and  oxygen  into  the  form  of  an  oak 
or  an  eagle  or  a  man?  Is  it  some- 
thing which  is  really  nothing;  and 
soon  shall  it  be  manifestly  the  noth- 
ing that  an  ignorant  and  purblind 
creature  may  suppose  it  to  be? 

Not  so;  nor  is  it  so  with  intellect 
and  consciousness  and  will,  nor  with 
memory  andMov^  and  adoration,  nor 
all  the  manifold  activities  which  at 
36 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

present  strangely  interact  with  mat- 
ter and  appeal  to  our  bodily  senses 
and  terrestrial  knowledge;  they  are 
not  nothing,  nor  shall  they  ever  van- 
ish into  nothingness  or  cease  to  be- 
They  did  not  arise  with  us:  they 
never  did  spring  into  being;  they 
are  as  eternal  as  the  Godhead  itself, 
and  in  the  eternal  Being  they  shall 
endure  for  ever. 

"Though  earth  and  man  were  gone, 

And  suns  and  universes  ceased  to  be, 
And  Thou  wert  left  alone, 

Every  existence  would  exist  in  Thee." 

So  sang  Emily  Bronte  on  her 
deathbed,  in  a  poem  which  Mr.  Hal- 
dane  quotes  in  full,  in  his  Gifford 
Lectures,  as  containing  true  philoso- 
phy. And,  surely  in  this  respect 
there  is  a  unity  running  through  the 
universe,  and  a  kinship  between  the 
37 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

human  and  the  Divine:  witness  the 
eloquent  ejaculation  of  Carlyle: — 

"What,  then,  is  man !     What,  then,  is  man ! 

"He  endures  but  for  an  hour,  and  is 
crushed  before  the  moth.  Yet  in  the  being 
and  in  the  working  of  a  faithful  man  is 
there  already  (as  all  faith,  from  the  begin- 
ning, gives  assurance)  a  something  that  per- 
tains not  to  this  wild  death-element  of  Time; 
that  triumphs  over  Time,  and  is,  and  will  be, 
when  Time  shall  be  no  more." 


II 

THE  PERMANENCE  OF  PERSON- 
ALITY 

"After  death  the  soul  possesses  self-con- 
sciousness, otherwise  it  would  be  the  subject 
of  spiritual  death,  which  has  already  been  dis- 
proved. With  this  self-consciousness  neces- 
sarily remains  personality  and  the  conscious- 
ness of  personal  identity." — KANT,  quoted  by 
HEINZE. 

IN  the  part  treating  of  "The  Tran- 
sitory and  the  Permanent,"  perma- 
nence was  claimed  for  the  essence, 
the  intrinsic  reality,  the  soul  of  any- 
thing; and  transitoriness  for  its  bod- 
ily presentment — that  is,  for  all  such 
things  as  special  groupings,  arrange- 
ments, systems,  which  are  liable  to 
break  up  into  their  constituent  ele- 
39 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

ments,  and  cease  to  cohere  into  a 
united  and  organized  aggregate. 
The  only  real  destruction  known  to 
us,  in  fact,  in  this  disintegration  or 
breaking  up  of  an  assemblage :  things 
themselves  never  spring  into  or  out 
of  existence.  All  we  can  cause  or 
can  observe  is  variety  of  motion — 
never  creation  or  annihilation.  And 
even  ^e  m°ti°n  *s  transferred  from 
one  body  to  another,  and  transformed 

*n  t'le  Process>  i*  *s  not  generated 
from  nothing,  nor  can  it  be  de- 
stroyed. Special  groupings  and  ap- 
pearances are  transitory;  it  is  their 
intrinsic  and  constructive  essence 
which  is  permanent. 

But  then,  what  about  personality, 
individuality,  our  own  character  and 
self?  Are  these  akin  to  the  tempo- 
rary groupings  which  shall  be  dis- 
solved, or  are  they  among  the  sub- 
40 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

stantial  realities  that  shall  endure? 

Let  us  see  how  to  define  the  idea 
of  personality  or  personal  and  in- 
dividual character: — A  memory,  a 
consciousness,  and  a  will,  in  so  far  as 
they  form  a  consistent  harmonious 
whole,  constitute  a  personality; 
which  thus  has  relations  with  the 
past,  the  present,  and  the  future. 
And  we  shall  argue  that  personality 
or  individuality  itself  dominates  and 
transcends  all  temporal  modes  of  ex- 
pression, and  so  is  essentially  eternal 
wherever  it  exists. 

The  life  of  an  insect  or  a  tree  may 
in  some  sort — must,  one  would  think, 
in  some  sort — persist,  but  surely  not 
its  personal  character!  Why  not? 
Because,  presumably,  it  has  none. 
We  can  hardly  imagine  that  such  a 
thing  has  any  individuality  or  per- 
sonality: it  appears  to  us  to  be  merely 
41 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

one  of  a  group,  a  mere  unit  in  a 
world  of  being,  without  personality 
of  its  own.  That  is  what  I  assume, 
though  I  do  not  dogmatise ;  nor  do  I 
consider  it  certain,  for  some  of  the 
higher  animals.  Anyhow  we  may 
at  once  admit  that,  for  all  those 
things  which  only  share  in  a  general 
life,  the  temporarily  separated  por- 
tion of  that  general  life  will  return, 
undifferentiated  and  unidentified,  to 
its  central  store:  just  as  happens  in 
the  better-understood  categories  of 
matter  and  energy. 

That  is  simple  enough.  But  sup- 
pose that  some  individual  character, 
some  personality,  does  exist.  Sup- 
pose that  not  only  life,  but  intellect 
and  emotion  and  consciousness  and 
will  are  all  associated  with  a  certain 
physical  organism;  and  suppose  that 
these  things  have  a  real  and  undeni- 
42 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

able  existence — an  existence  strength- 
ened and  compacted  by  experience 
and  suffering  and  joy,  till  it  is  no 
longer  only  a  function  of  the  mate- 
rial aggregate  in  which  for  a  time  it 
is  embodied,  but  belongs  to  a  uni- 
verse of  spirit  closely  related  to  im- 
manent and  transcendent  Deity; 
what  then?  If  all  that  really  exists, 
in  the  highest  sense,  is  immortal,  we 
have  only  to  ask  whether  our  per- 
sonality, our  character,  our  self,  is 
sufficiently  individual,  sufficiently 
characteristic,  sufficiently  developed, 
— in  a  word,  sufficiently  real;  for  if 
it  is,  there  can  then  be  no  doubt  of 
its  continuance.  It  may  return,  in- 
deed, in  some  sense,  to  the  central 
store,  but  not  without  identity;  its 
individual  character  will  be  pre- 
served. 


43 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

Conservation  of  Value. 

Professor  Hoffding  of  Copenha- 
gen goes  further  than  this.  In  his 
book  on  the  Philosophy  of  Religion 
he  teaches  that  what  he  calls  the  ax- 
iom of  "the  conservation  of  value" 
is  the  fundamental  ingredient  in  all 
religions — the  foundation  without 
which  none  of  them  could  stand. 
In  his  view,  as  a  philosopher,  agree- 
ing therein  with  Browning  and  other 
poets,  no  real  Value  or  Good  is  ever 
lost.  The  whole  progress  and  course 
of  evolution  is  to  increase  and  in- 
tensify the  Valuable — that  which 
"avails"  or  is  serviceable  for  high- 
est purposes, — and  it  does  so  by 
bringing  out  that  which  was  poten- 
tial or  latent,  so  as  to  make  it  actual 
and  real.  Real  it  was,  no  doubt,  all 
the  time  in  some  sense,  as  an  oak  is 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

implicit  in  an  acorn  or  a  flower  in 
a  bud,  but  in  process  of  time  it  un- 
folds and  adds  to  the  realized  Value 
of  the  universe. 

To  carry  out  this  idea  we  might 
define  immortality  thus : — 

Immortality  is  the  persistence  of 
the  essential  and  the  real:  it  applies 
to  things  which  the  universe  has 
gained — things  which,  once  acquired, 
cannot  be  let  go.  It  is  an  example 
of  the  conservation  of  Value.  The 
tendency  of  evolution  is  to  increase 
the  actuality  of  Value,  converting  it 
from  a  potential  into  an  available 
form. 

Value  may,  however,  be  something 
more  than  merely  constant  in  quan- 
tity, according  to  Professor  Hoff- 
ding.  Experience  of  evolution  sug- 
gests that  it  must  increase.  Cer- 
tainly it  passes  from  latent  to  more 
45 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

patent  forms;  and  though  it  some- 
times swings  back,  yet,  on  the  whole, 
progress  seems  upward.  Is  it  not 
legitimate  to  conjecture  that  while 
Matter  and  Energy  neither  increase 
nor  decrease,  but  only  change  in 
form ;  and  while  life  too  perhaps  is 
constant  in  quantity,  though  alter- 
nating into  and  out  of  incarnation 
according  as  material  organisms  are 
put  together  or  worn  out;  yet  that 
some  of  the  higher  attributes  of  exist- 
ence,— love,  shall  we  say,  joy  per- 
haps, what  may  be  generalised  as 
Good  generally,  or  as  availability  or 
Value, — may  actually  increase:  their 
apparent  alternations  being  really 
the  curves  of  an  upward-tending 
spiral?  It  is  an  optimistic  faith,  but 
it  is  the  faith  of  the  poets  and  seers. 
Whatever  evil  days  may  fall  upon  an 
individual  or  a  nation,  or  even  some- 
46 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

times  on  a  whole  planet,  yet  the  ma- 
terial is  subordinate  to  the  spiritual; 
and  if  the  spiritual  persists,  it  cannot 
be  stationary;  it  must  surely  rise  in 
the  scale  of  existence.  For  evil  is 
that  which  retards  or  frustrates  de- 
velopment, in  any  part  of  the  uni- 
verse subject  to  its  sway,  and,  accord- 
ingly, its  kingdom  cannot  stand :  evil 
contains  an  essentially  suicidal  ele- 
ment, so  that  on  the  whole  the  realm 
of  the  good  must  tend  to  increase,  the 
realm  of  the  bad  to  diminish. 

"No  existing  universe  can  tend 
on  the  whole  towards  contraction  and 
decay;  because  that  would  foster  an- 
nihilation, and  so  any  incipient  at- 
tempt would  not  have  survived;  con- 
sequently an  actually  existing  and 
flowing  universe  must  on  the  whole 
cherish  development,  expansion, 
growth ;  and  so  tends  towards  infinity 
47 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

rather  than  toward  zero.  The  prob- 
lem is  therefore  only  a  variant  of  the 
general  problem  of  existence.  Given 
existence,  of  a  non-stagnant  kind,  and 
ultimate  development  must  be  its 
law.  Good  and  evil  can  be  defined 
in  terms  of  development  and  decay 
respectively.  This  may  be  regarded 
as  part  of  a  revelation  of  the  nature 
of  God"  (The  Substance  of  Faith). 

From  this  point  of  view  the  law  of 
evolution  is  that  Good  shall  on  the 
whole  increase  in  the  universe  with 
the  process  of  the  suns:  that  immor- 
tality itself  is  a  special  case  of  a  more 
general  Law,  namely,  that  in  the 
whole  universe  nothing  really  finally 
perishes  that  is  worth  keeping,  that 
a  thing  once  attained  is  not  thrown 
away. 

The  general  mutability  and  mor- 
tality in  the  world  need  not  perturb 
48 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

us.  The  things  we  see  perishing 
and  dying  are  not  of  the  same  kind 
as  those  which  we  hope  to  endure. 
Death  and  decay,  as  we  know  them, 
are  interesting  physical  processes, 
which  may  be  studied  and  under- 
stood ;  they  have  seized  the  imagina- 
tion of  man,  and  govern  his  emo- 
tions, perhaps  unduly,  but  there  is 
nothing  in  them  to  suggest  ultimate 
destruction,  or  the  final  triumph  of 
ill;  they  are  necessary  correlatives 
to  conception  and  birth  into  a  mate- 
rial world;  they  do  not  really  contra- 
dict an  optimistic  view  of  existence. 
So  far  as  we  can  tell,  there  need 
be  no  real  waste,  no  real  loss,  no  an- 
nihilation ;  but  everything  sufficiently 
valuable,  be  it  beauty,  artistic 
achievement,  knowledge,  unselfish 
affection,  may  be  thought  of  as  en- 
during henceforth  and  for  ever,  if 
49 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

not  with  an  individual  and  personal 
existence,  yet  as  part  of  the  eternal 
Being  of  God. 

Permanent  Element  in  Man. 

And  this  carries  with  it  the  per- 
sistence of  personality  in  all  crea- 
tures who  have  risen  to  the  attain- 
ment of  God-like  faculties,  such  as 
self-determination  and  other  attri- 
butes which  suggest  kinship  with 
Deity  and  make  their  possessor  a 
member  of  the  Divine  family.  For 
whether  or  not  this  incipient  theory 
of  the  conservation  of  value  stand 
the  test  of  criticism,  it  is  undeniable 
that,  as  in  the  quotation  from  Car- 
lyle  at  the  end  of  my  last  article, 
seers  do  not  hesitate  to  attribute  per- 
manence and  timeless  existence  to 
the  essential  element  in  man  himself. 
They  realise  that  he  is  one  with  the 
50 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

universe,  that  he  may  come  to  be  in 
tune  with  the  infinite,  and  that  his 
spasmodic  efforts  towards  a  state 
wherein  the  average  will  rise  to  a 
level  now  attained  by  only  the  few, 
are  part  of  the  evolutionary  travail- 
jig  of  the  whole  creation.  "All 
omens,"  says  Myers — 

"All  omens  point  towards  the  steady  con- 
tinuance of  just  such  labour  as  has  already 
taught  us  all  we  know.  Perhaps,  indeed,  in 
this  complex  of  interpenetrating  spirits  our 
own  effort  is  no  individual,  no  transitory, 
thing.  That  which  lies  at  the  root  of  each 
of  us  lies  at  the  root  of  the  Cosmos  too. 
Our  struggle  is  the  struggle  of  the  Universe 
itself;  and  the  very  Godhead  finds  fulfilment 
through  our  upward-striving  souls"  (Myers, 
Human  Personality,  ii.,  p.  277). 

To  return  to  the  problem  of  in- 
dividual existence  and  to  a  more  pro- 
saic   atmosphere.     What    we     are 
51 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

claiming  is  no  less  than  this  —  that, 
whereas  it  is  certain  that  the  present 
body  cannot  long  exist  without  the 
soul,  it  is  quite  possible  and  indeed 
necessary  for  the  soul  to  exist  with- 
out the  present  body.  We  base  this 
claim  on  the  soul's  manifest  tran- 
scendence, on  its  genuine  reality,  and 
on  the  general  law  of  /the 
of  all  real 


Recognition  of  the  permanent  ele- 
ment in  man  and  of  the  probability 
of  his  individual  survival,  —  that  is 
to  say,  of  the  persistence  of  intelli- 
gence and  memory  after  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  brain  —  if  such  recogni- 
tion is  to  be  of  the  greatest  use  to 
mankind,  should  be  based  on  general 
considerations  open  and  familiar  to 
all,  and  be  independent  of  special 
study  with  results  verified  by  only  a 
few.  But  if  general  arguments  are 
52 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

insufficient,  and  if  the  reader  has  pa- 
tience with  a  more  specific  line  of  in- 
vestigation, then  I  submit  that  the 
question  can  also  be  studied  by  the 
aid  of  observation  and  experiment, 
and  that  a  conviction  of  persistence 
of  personality  can  be  strengthened 
by  the  record  and  discovery  of  spe- 
cific facts. 

Expression  of  Thought  in  Terms  of 
Motion. 

The  brain  is  definitely  the  link 
between  the  psychical  and  the  phys- 
ical, which  in  themselves  belong  to 
different  orders  of  being.  In  the 
psychical  region  "thought"  is  the 
dominant  reality;  in  the  physical, 
"motion."  The  bodily  organism 
mysteriously  enables  one  to  be  trans- 
lated in  terms  of  the  other.  Without 
some  connecting  mechanism,  such 
53 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

as  that  afforded  by  brain,  nerve,  and 
muscle,  the  things  we  call  intelli- 
gence and  will,  however  real,  would 
be  incapable  of  moving  the  small- 
est particle  of  matter.  Now,  since 
it  is  solely  by  moving  matter  that 
we  can  operate  at  all  in  the  material 
world,  or  can  make  ourselves  known 
to  our  fellows, — for  in  the  last  resort 
speech  and  writing  and  every  action 
reduce  themselves  to  muscular  move- 
ment,— and  since  death  inhibits  this 
power,  by  breaking  the  link  between 
soul  and  body,  death  naturally  stops 
all  manifestation,  interrupts  all  in- 
tercourse, and  so  has  been  superfi- 
cially thought  to  be  the  annihilation 
of  the  soul. 

But  such  a  conclusion  is  quite  un- 
warranted. Existence  need  not 
make  itself  conspicuous:  things  are 
always  difficult  to  discover  when 
54 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

they  make  no  impression  on  the 
senses :  the  human  race  is  hardly  yet 
aware,  for  instance,  of  the  Ether  of 
space;  and  there  may  belfmuititude 
of  other  things  towards  which  it  is 
in  the  same  predicament. 

Superficially,  nothing  is  easier 
than  to  claim  that  just  as  when  the 
brain  is  damaged  the  memory  fails, 
so  when  the  brain  is  destroyed  the 
memory  ceases.  The  reasoning  is  so 
plausible  and  obvious,  so  within 
reach  of  the  meanest  capacity,  that 
those  who  use  it  against  adversaries 
of  any  but  the  lowest  intelligence 
might  surely  assume  that  it  had  al- 
ready occurred  to  them  and  exhibited 
its  weak  point.  The  weak  point  in 
the  argument  is  its  tacit  assumption 
that  what  is  non-manifest  is  nonex- 
istent; that  smoothing  out  the  traces 
of  guilt  is  equivalent  to  annihilating 
55 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

a  crime ;  and  that  by  destroying  the 
mechanism  of  interaction  between 
the  spiritual  and  the  material  aspects 
of  existence  you  must  necessarily  be 
destroying  one  or  other  of  those  as- 
pects themselves. 

The  brain  is  our  present  organ  of 
thought.  Granted;  but  it  does  not 
follow  that  brain  controls  and  domi- 
nates thought,  that  inspiration  is  a 
physiological  process,  or  that  every 
thinking  creature  in  the  universe 
must  possess  a  brain.  Really  we 
know  too  little  about  the  way  the 
brain  thinks,  if  it  can  properly  be 
said  to  think  at  all,  to  be  able  to 
make  any  such  assertion  as  that.  We 
terrestrial  animals  are  all  as  it  were 
one  family,  and  our  hereditary  links 
with  the  psychical  universe  consist 
of  the  physiological  mechanism 
called  brain  and  nerve.  But  these 
56 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

most  interesting  material  structures 
are  our  servants,  not  our  masters : 
we  have  to  train  them  to  serve  our 
purposes ;  and  if  one  side  of  the  brain 
is  injured,  the  other  side  may  be 
trained  to  act  instead.  Destroy  cer- 
tain parts  of  the  brain  completely, 
however,  and  connexion  between  the 
psychic  and  the  material  regions  is 
for  us  severed.  True;  but  cutting 
off  or  damaging  communication  is 
not  the  same  as  destroying  or  dam- 
aging the  communicator:  nor  is 
smashing  an  organ  equivalent  to  kill- 
ing the  organist.  When  the  Atlan- 
tic cable  broke,  in  1858,  intimate 
communication  between  England 
and  America  was  destroyed ;  but  that 
fact  did  not  involve  the  destruction 
of  either  America  or  England.  It 
appears  to  be  necessary  to  empha- 
sise this  elementary  matter,  because 
57 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

the  contrary  contention  is  supposed 
to  cut  straight  at  the  root  of  every 
kind  of  general  argument  for  survi- 
val hitherto  adduced. 

But  after  all,  it  may  be  said,  the 
above  contention  proves  nothing 
either  way;  granted  that  breach  of 
communication  does  not  mean  de- 
struction of  terminal  stations,  it 
leaves  the  question  as  to  their  per- 
sistence an  open  one.  Yes,  it  does; 
it  leaves  persistence  to  be  sustained 
by  general  arguments,  such  as  those 
of  Part  I.,  which  were  directed  to 
establishing  the  priority  in  essence  of 
the  spiritual  to  the  material,  of  idea 
to  bodily  presentation;  and  to  be 
supported  by  any  kind  of  additional 
and  special  experience. 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

Argument  from  Telepathy. 

First  of  all,  then,  we  must  ask, 
are  we  quite  sure  that  the  breach 
of  intercourse  is  as  clear  and  definite 
and  complete  as  had  been  supposed? 
We  have  no  glimmering  conception 
of  the  process  by  which  mental  ac- 
tivity operates  on  the  matter  of  the 
brain;  so  we  cannot  be  sure  that  its 
influence  is  limited  entirely  to  the 
brain  material  belonging  to  its  own 
special  organism.  It  may  conceiv- 
ably be  able  to  affect  other  brains 
too,  either  directly,  or  indirectly 
through  an  immediate  influence  on 
the  mind  associated  with  them.  In- 
telligent communication  is  normally 
carried  on  by  means  of  conventional 
mechanical  movements,  calculated 
to  set  up  special  aerial  or  ethereal 
tremors;  which  have  to  be  appre- 
59 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

bended  through  sense  organs  and 
brain,  and  interpreted  back  again 
into  thought.  But  we  are  constrained 
to  contemplate  the  possibility  of  a 
more  direct  method,  and  to  ask,  is 
there  ever  any  direct  psychical  con- 
nexion between  mind  and  mind,  ir- 
respective of  intermediate  physical 
processes?  It  is  a  definite  though 
difficult  question,  to  be  answered  by 
experience.  And  an  affirmative  an- 
swer would  suggest,  among  other 
things,  that  though  individuality  is 
dependent  upon  brain  for  physical 
manifestation,  it  may  not  be  depend- 
ent on  brain  for  physical  existence. 

Such  independence  is  difficult  to 
prove  directly,  in  a  way  convincing 
to  those  who  approach  the  subject 
without  previous  study,  or  with 
prejudices  against  it;  because  in  the 
proof,  or  to  produce  any  recordable 
60 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

impression,  a  bodily  organ — such  as 
brain  or  muscle — must  be  used. 
We  are  not,  and  cannot  be,  com- 
pletely independent  of  the  body,  in 
this  earth  life:  but  we  can  bring  for- 
ward facts  which  seem  to  indicate  an 
activity  specially  and  peculiarly 
psychical,  and  only  slightly  physical. 
Of  physical  modes  of  communica- 
tion between  mind  and  mind  there 
are  many  varieties:  none  of  which 
do  we  really  understand,  beyond  a 
knowledge  of  their  physical  details, 
though  we  are  well  accustomed  to 
them  all ;  but  we  know  of  one  which 
appears  not  to  be  physical,  save  at 
its  terminals,  and  which  has  the  ap- 
pearance of  being,  in  its  mode  of 
transmission,  exclusively  psychical. 
That  is  to  say,  it  occurs  as  if  one 
mind  operated  directly  either  on  an- 
other brain  or  on  another  mind 
61 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

across  a  distance  (if  distance  has  any 
meaning  in  such  a  case)  ;  or  as  if  one 
mind  exerted  its  influence  on  another 
through  the  conscious  intervention 
of  a  third  mind  acting  as  messenger; 
or  as  if  mental  intercourse  were  ef- 
fected unconsciously,  through  a  gen- 
eral nexus  of  communication — a  uni- 
versal world-mind.  All  these  hy- 
potheses have  been  suggested  at  dif- 
ferent times  by  the  phenomenon  of 
telepathy;  and  which  of  them  is 
nearest  the  truth  it  is  difficult  to  say. 
There  are  some  who  think  that  all 
are  true,  and  that  different  means 
are  employed  at  different  times. 

What  we  can  assert  is  this,  that  the 
facts  of  "telepathy,"  and  in  a  less  de- 
gree of  what  is  called  "clairvoy- 
ance," must  be  regarded  as  practi- 
cally established,  in  the  minds  of 
those  who  have  studied  them. 
62 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

There  may  be,  indeed  there  is,  still 
much  doubt  about  the  explanation 
to  be  attached  to  those  facts;  there 
is  uncertainty  as  to  their  real  mean- 
ing, and  as  to  whether  the  idea  half- 
suggested  by  the  word  "telepathy"  is 
completely  correct;  but  the  facts 
themselves  are  too  numerous  and 
well  authenticated  to  be  doubted,— 
even  if  we  except  from  our  survey 
the  directly  experimental  cases  de- 
signed to  test  and  bring  to  book  this 
strange  human  faculty. 

Thus  telepathy  opens  a  new  chap- 
ter in  science,  and  is  of  an  importance 
that  cannot  be  exaggerated.  Even 
alone,  it  tends  mightily  to  strengthen 
the  argument  for  transcendence  of 
mind  over  body,  so  that  we  may  rea- 
sonably expect  the  one  to  be  capable 
of  existing  independently  and  of  sur- 
viving the  other;  though  by  itself,  or 
63 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

in  a  discarnate  condition,  it  is  pre- 
sumably unable  to  achieve  anything 
directly  on  the  physical  plane.  But 
telepathy  is  not  all.  Telepathy  is 
indeed  only  the  first  link  in  a  chain: 
there  are  further  links,  further  stages 
on  the  road  to  scientific  proof. 

Arguments  from  Prtzternormal  Psy- 
chology. 

Have  we  no  facts  to  go  upon,  only 
speculation,  concerning  the  actual 
persistence  of  individual  memory 
and  consciousness, — of  much  that 
characterises  a  personality — apart 
from  a  bodily  vehicle?  Facts  we 
have;  but  they  are  not  generally 
known,  nor  are  they  universally  ac- 
cepted: they  have  still,  many  of 
them,  to  run  the  gauntlet  of  scien- 
tific criticism  even  among  the  few 
64 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

students  who  take  the  trouble  to 
study  them.  Their  theory  has  been 
worked  at  pertinaciously,  but  it  is 
still  in  a  rudimentary  stage,  and  by 
the  mass  of  scientific  men  the  whole 
subject  is  at  present  ignored,  because 
it  seems  an  elusive  and  disappoint- 
ing inquiry,  and  because  there  are 
other  fields  which  are  easier  of  culti- 
vation and  promise  more  immediate 
fertility. 

The  chief  facts  to  which  we  can 
appeal  belong  to  one  of  three  marked 
regions : — 

First,  experiences  connected  with 
genius,  vision,  and  dream,  extend- 
ing up  to  premonition  and  clairvoy- 
ance,— the  specially  psychological 
region. 

Second,  the  singular  modification 
of  bodily  faculty  sometimes  expe- 
65 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

rienced, — ranging  from  unusual  ex- 
tension of  sensory  and  muscular 
powers,  such  as  hyperaesthesia  and 
what  is  technically  known  as  au- 
tomatism, up  to  various  grades  of 
what  has  been  described  as  mate- 
rialisation;— all  which  great  group 
of  asserted  and  controverted  phe- 
nomena may  be  said  to  belong  to  the 
physiological  region. 

Third,  the  at  first  sight  discon- 
certing facts  connected  with  appar- 
ent changes,  dislocations  and  dis- 
integrations, of  personality — what 
we  may  call  the  pathological  re- 
gion. 

Concerning  all  this  mass  of  infor- 
mation, not  only  is  the  theory  far 
from  distinct,  but  many  of  the  facts 
themselves  are  only  sparsely  known : 
they  belong  to  a  special  branch  of 
study,  which,  conducted  under  many 
66 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

difficulties,  cannot  be  properly  ap- 
prehended at  second  hand. 

Suffice  it  therefore  to  say,  that 
whereas  it  is  quite  clear  that  man- 
ifestation of  memory  and  conscious- 
ness, in  a  form  capable  of  being  ap- 
preciated by  or  demonstrated  to  us, 
is  evidently  not  possible  without  a 
material  organism  or  body  of  some 
kind,  yet — in  the  judgment  of  many 
students  of  the  subject — a  surviving 
memory  or  personality,  even  though 
discarnate,  need  not  be  utterly  and 
completely  prevented  from  still  oc- 
casionally operating  in  our  sphere. 

For  as  it  was  possible  for  what  in 
Part  I.,  we  defined  as  "soul"  to  com- 
pose and  employ  an  organ  suited  to 
itself,  out  of  various  kinds  of  nutri- 
ment, so  also  it  appears  to  be  possi- 
ble, though  not  without  difficulty 
and  extraordinary  trouble,  for  a  dis- 
67 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

carnate  entity  or  psychical  unit  oc- 
casionally to  utilise  a  body  con- 
structed by  some  other  similar 
"soul,"  and  to  make  an  attempt  at 
communication  and  manifestation 
through  that.  It  has  even  been  con- 
jectured that  by  special  exertion  of 
psychical  power  a  temporary  organ 
of  materialisation  can  be  constructed, 
presumably  of  organic  particles, 
sufficient  to  enable  some  interaction 
between  spirit  and  matter,  and  even 
to  display  some  personal  characteris- 
tics, through  the  utilisation  of  a  form 
partially  separate  from,  though  also 
closely  connected  with,  and  as  some 
think  even  borrowed  from,  the  bod- 
ily organism  of  the  auxiliary  person 
known  technically  as  the  "medium" 
of  communication,  whose  presence  is 
certainly  necessary.  In  favour  of 
such  an  occurrence  there  is  much  evi- 
68 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

dence,  some  of  it  of  a  weak  kind, 
some  of  it  quite  valueless ;  but  again 
some  of  it  is  strong,  evidenced  by 
weighing,  and  vouched  for  by  expe- 
rienced naturalists  and  observers 
such  as  Dr.  A.  R.  Wallace  and  Sir 
W.  Crookes,  as  well  as  by  the  emi- 
nent physiologist  Professor  Richet, 
and  by  Professors  Schiaparelli,  Lom- 
broso,  and  other  foreign  men  of  sci- 
ence. 

The  idea  here  suggested  is  admit- 
tedly bizarre  and  at  first  sight  ab- 
surd; nevertheless  something  of  the 
kind  has  the  appearance  of  being 
true,  in  spite  of  its  having  been  dis- 
credited by  much  professional  fraud 
exercised  upon  too  willing  dupes. 
The  phenonenon  on  which  it  is  based 
is  at  any  rate  a  puzzling  one,  calling 
for  further  investigation :  which  must 
ultimately  pursue  it  into  a  region 
69 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

quite  apart  from  and  beyond  the  ob- 
vious possibilities  of  fraud ;  that  is  to 
say,  must  not  only  establish  it  as  a 
fact,  if  it  be  a  fact,  but  must  ascer- 
tain the  laws  which  govern  it. 

Argument  from  Automatism. 

More  frequently,  however,  a  sim- 
pler method,  akin  to  telepathy  and 
to  what  is  commonly  known  as  in- 
spiration or  "possession,"  is  em- 
ployed ;  whereby  some  portion  of  the 
brain  of  "the  automatist"  appears  to 
be  operated  upon  directly,  so  as  to 
produce  intelligible  statements,  in 
speech  or  writing,  often  of  considera- 
ble length  and  occasionally  in  un- 
known languages ; — these  messages 
being,  at  least  in  the  cases  where  they 
are  not  merely  subjective  and  of  lit- 
tle interest,  apparently  irrespective 
of  the  ordinary  consciousness,  and 
70 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

only  slightly  sophisticated  by  the  nor- 
mal mental  activity,  of  the  person  by 
whom  this  organ  is  usually  wielded, 
and  to  whom  it  nominally  "be- 
longs." 

The  body,  in  fact,  or  some  part  of 
the  body,  though  usually  controlled 
and  directed  by  the  particular 
psychical  agent  which  has  composed 
and  grown  accustomed  to  it,  can 
sometimes  be  found  capable  of  re- 
sponding to  a  foreign  intelligence, 
acting  either  telepathically  through 
the  mind  or  telergically  by  a  more 
direct  process  straight  on  the  brain. 
Sometimes  the  controlling  intelli- 
gence belongs  to  a  living  person,  as 
in  cases  of  hypnotism ;  more  usually 
it  is  an  influence  emanating  from 
what  we  must  consider  some  portion 
of  the  automatisms  own  larger  or  sub- 
liminal self.  Occasionally  a  person 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

appears  able  to  respond  to  thoughts 
or  stimuli  embedded,  as  it  were, 
among  psycho-physical  surroundings 
in  a  manner  at  present  ill  under- 
stood and  almost  incredible; — as  if 
strong  emotions  could  be  uncon- 
ciously  recorded  in  matter,  so  that 
the  deposit  shall  thereafter  affect  a 
sufficiently  sensitive  organism,  and 
cause  similar  emotions  to  reproduce 
themselves  in  its  subconsciousness, 
in  a  manner  analogous  to  the  custo- 
mary conscious  interpretation  of 
photographic  or  phonographic  rec- 
ords, and  indeed  of  pictures  or  music 
and  artistic  embodiment  generally. 
And  lastly,  there  are  people  who 
seem  able  to  respond  to  a  psychical 
agency  apparently  related  to  the  sur- 
viving portion  of  intelligences  now 
discarnate,  in  such  a  way  as  to  sug- 
gest that  the  said  intelligences  are 
72 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

picking  up  the  thread  of  their  old 
thoughts,  and  entering  into  some- 
thing like  their  old  surroundings 
and  their  old  feelings — though 
often  only  in  a  more  or  less  dreamy 
and  semi-entranced  condition — for 
the  purpose  of  conveying  hallu- 
cinatory or  other  impressions  to 
those  who  are  still  in  the  com- 
pletely embodied  state. 

It  would  be  a  great  mistake  to  as- 
sume, without  proof,  that  any  given 
automatic  message  really  emanates 
from  the  person  to  whom  it  is  attrib- 
uted; and  such  a  generalisation  ap- 
plied to  all  so-called  messages  would 
be  grotesquely  untrue.  But  then 
neither  should  we  be  safe  in  main- 
taining that  none  of  them  have  an 
authentic  character,  and  that  they 
are  never  in  any  degree  what  they 
purport  to  be.  The  elimination  of 
73 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

the  normal  personality  of  the  au- 
tomatist,  and  the  proof  of  the  sup- 
posed communicator's  identity,  are 
singularly  difficult;  but  in  a  few 
cases  the  evidence  for  identity  is  re- 
markably strong.  The  substance  of 
the  message  and  the  kind  of  memory 
displayed  in  these  cases  belong  not 
at  all  to  the  brain  of  the  automa- 
tist,  but  clearly  to  the  intelligence 
of  the  asserted  control:  of  whose 
identity  and  special  knowledge  they 
are  sometimes  strongly  character- 
istic. As  to  the  elimination  of  nor- 
mal personality,  however,  it  must  be 
admitted  that,  in  all  cases,  the  man- 
ner and  accidents  or  accessories  of 
the  message  are  liable  to  be  modified 
by  the  material  instrument  or  organ 
through  which  the  thought  or  idea 
is  for  our  information  reproduced. 
The  reproduction  of  a  thought  in 
74 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

our  world  appears  to  demand  dis- 
tinct effort  on  the  part  of  a  transcen- 
dental thinker,  and  it  seems  to  be  al- 
most a  matter  of  indifference,  or  so 
to  speak  of  accident  not  determined 
by  the  thinker,  whether  it  make  its 
appearance  here  in  the  form  of 
speech  or  of  writing,  or  whether  it 
take  the  form  of  a  work  of  art,  or  of 
unusual  spiritual  illumination.  This 
is  surely  true  of  orthodox  inspiration, 
as  well  as  of  what  we  are  now  con- 
jecturing may  perhaps  be  an  attempt 
at  some  additional  method  of  arous- 
ing ideas  in  us.  Moreover,  in  both 
cases,  lucidity  is  only  to  be  expected, 
and  is  only  obtained,  in  flashes.  The 
best  of  us  only  get  flashes  of  genius 
now  and  then,  and  the  experience  is 
seldom  unduly  prolonged.  Why 
should  we  expect  it  to  be  otherwise? 
There  is  another  aspect  of  the  mat- 
75 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

ter  that  may  be  mentioned  too.  For 
most  of  the  difficulty  of  inter-com- 
munication we  ourselves  must  be 
held  responsible.!  Our  normal  im- 
mersion in  mundane  affairs  may  be 
very  sensible  and  practical,  and  is 
probably  essential  to  earthly  progress 
until  our  civilisation  is  rather  more 
consolidated  and  developed,  but  it 
can  hardly  facilitate  communion 
with  another  order  of  existence.) 
Nor  is  it  likely  that  we  should  be 
able  to  appreciate  the  intimate  con- 
cerns of  that  other  order,  even  if  it 
were  feasible  to  convey  a  detailed 
account  of  them. 

It  is  true  that  messages  are  often 
vague  and  disappointing  even  when 
apparently  genuine ;  untrue  that  they 
are  invariably  futile  and  useless  and 
inappropriate, — such  an  assertion 
could  only  be  made  by  people  im- 
76 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

perfectly  acquainted  with  the  facts. 
In  certain  cases  it  is  quite  clear  that 
a  bodily  organism  has  been  con- 
trolled by  something  other  than  its 
usual  and  normal  intelligence,  and 
in  a  few  cases  the  identity  of  the  con- 
trol has  been  almost  crucially  estab- 
lished :  though  that  is  a  matter  to  be 
dealt  with  more  technically  else- 
where. 

Subliminal  Faculty. 

The  extension  of  faculty  exhib- 
ited during  some  trance  states  has 
suggested  that  a  similar  enlargement 
of  memory  and  consciousness  may 
follow  or  accompany  our  departure 
from  this  life,  and  is  partly  responsi- 
ble for  the  notion  of  the  existence  of 
a  subliminal  or  normally  uncon- 
scious portion  of  our  total  personal- 
ity. On  this  subject  I  can  conven- 
77 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

iently  refer  to  the  summary  con- 
tained in  Myers's  chapters  on  "Dis- 
integration  of  Personality"  and  on 
"Genius,"  in  vol.  i.  of  his  Human 
Personality.  This  doctrine — the  the- 
ory of  a  larger  and  permanent  per- 
sonality of  which  the  conscious  self 
is  only  a  fraction  in  process  of  indi- 
vidualisation,  the  fraction  being 
greater  or  less  according  to  the  mag- 
nitude of  the  individual, — this  doc- 
trine as  a  working  hypothesis,  illu- 
minates many  obscure  facts,  and 
serves  as  a  thread  through  an  other- 
wise bewildering  labyrinth.  It  re- 
moves a  number  of  elementary 
stumbling-blocks  which  otherwise 
obstruct  an  attempt  to  realise  vividly 
the  incipient  stages  of  personal  ex- 
istence; it  accounts  for  the  extraor- 
dinary rapidity  with  which  the  de- 
velopment of  an  individual  proceeds ; 
78 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

and  it  eases  the  theory  of  ordinary 
birth  and  death.  It  achieves  all  this 
as  well  as  the  office  for  which  it  was 
originally  designed,  viz.  the  elucida- 
tion of  unusual  experiences,  such  as 
those  associated  with  dreams,  pre- 
monitions, and  prodigies  of  genius. 
Many  great  and  universally  recog- 
nised thinkers,  Plato,  Virgil,  Kant,' 
I  think,1  and  Wordsworth,  all  had 
room  for  an  idea  more  or  less  of  this 
kind;  which  indeed,  in  some  form, 
is  almost  necessitated  by  a  considera- 
tion of  our  habitually  unconscious 
performance  of  organic  function. 

1  In  justification  of  the  inclusion  of  this 
name,  the  following  may  suffice  as  an  exam- 
ple:— "For  if  we  should  see  things  and  our- 
selves as  they  are,  we  would  see  ourselves  in 
a  world  of  spiritual  natures  with  which  our 
entire  real  relation  neither  began  at  birth  nor 
ended  with  the  body's  death." — KANT,  quoted 
by  HEINZE. 

79 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

Whatever  it  is  that  controls  our 
physiological  mechanism,  it  is  cer- 
tainly not  our  own  consciousness; 
nor  is  it  any  part  of  our  recognised 
and  obvious  personality. 

"We  feel  that  we  are  greater  than  we  know." 

Our  present  state  may  be  likened 
to  that  of  the  hulls  of  ships  sub- 
merged in  a  dim  ocean  among  many 
strange  beasts,  propelled  in  a  blind 
manner  through  space;  proud  per- 
haps of  accumulating  many  bar- 
nacles as  decoration;  only  recognis- 
ing our  destination  by  bumping 
against  the  dock  wall.  With  no 
cognisance  of  the  deck  and  the  cab- 
ins, the  spars  and  the  sails;  no 
thought  of  the  sextant  and  the  com- 
pass and  the  captain;  no  perception 
of  the  lookout  on  the  mast,  of  the 
distant  horizon;  no  vision  of  objects 
80 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

far  ahead,  dangers  to  be  avoided, 
destinations  to  be  reached,  other 
ships  to  be  spoken  with  by  other 
means  than  bodily  contact; — a  re- 
gion of  sunshine  and  cloud,  of  space, 
of  perception,  and  of  intelligence, 
utterly  inaccessible  to  the  parts  be- 
low the  water-line. 

To  suppose  that  we  know  and  un- 
derstand the  universe,  to  suppose 
that  we  have  grasped  its  main  out- 
lines, that  we  realise  pretty  com- 
pletely not  only  what  is  in  it,  but 
the  still  more  stupendous  problem 
of  what  is  not  and  cannot  be  in  it — 
as  do  some  of  our  gnostic  (self- 
styled  "agnostic")  friends — is  a  pre- 
sumptuous exercise  of  limited  intelli- 
gence, only  possible  to  a  certain  very 
practical  and  useful  order  of  brain, 
which  has  good  solid  work  of  a  com- 
monplace kind  to  do  in  the  world, 
81 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

and  has  been  restricted  in  its  outlook, 
let  us  say  by  Providence,  in  order 
that  it  may  do  that  one  thing  and  do 
it  well. 

And  just  as  we  fail  to  grasp  the 
universe,  so  do  we  fail  as  yet  to  know 
ourselves :  the  part  of  which  we  have 
become  aware,  the  part  which  man- 
ifestly governs  our  planetary  life,  is 
probably  far  from  being  the  whole.1 
The  assumption  that  the  true  self  is 
complex,  and  that  a  large  range  of 

1  Such  an  admission  is  quite  consistent  with 
recognition  of  the  momentous  character  of 
this  present  stage  of  existence,  not  only  while 
it  lasts,  but  as  influencing,  and  contributing 
in  every  sense  to,  the  future;  the  doctrine  of 
the  sublimal  self  throws  no  sort  of  contempt 
or  discouragement  on  the  things  which  really 
ought  to  interest  us  here  and  now.  There 
is  "danger  of  losing  sight  of  the  ideal  in  our 
immediate  life,  and  thinking  that  is  to  be 
found  only  in  the  past  or  in  the  future,"  says 
82 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

memory  may  ultimately  be  attained, 
is  justified  by  the  researches  of  alien- 
ists, and  mental  physicians  gener- 
ally, into  those  curious  pathological 
cases  of  "strata  of  memory"  or  dis- 
locations of  personality,  on  which 
many  medical  books  and  papers  are 
available  for  the  student.  In  cases 
of  multiple  personality,  the  patients, 
when  in  the  ordinary  or  normally 
conscious  state,  are  usually  ignorant 
of  what  has  happened  in  the  inter- 
vening periods  when  they  were  not 
in  that  state,  and  are  not  aware  of 
what  they  have  done  when  in  one  of 
the  deeper  states ;  but  as  soon  as  the 

Professor  Caird;  whereas  our  little  struggle 
is  part  of  the  great  conflict  of  good  and  evil 
in  the  universe,  and  we  should  be  encouraged 
were  we  to  "realise  that  our  life  is  not  an 
aimless  or  meaningless  vicissitude  of  events, 
but  an  essential  step  in  the  great  process." 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

personality  has  entered  an  ultra- 
normal  condition,  it  is  often  found  to 
be  aware,  not  only  of  its  previous 
actions  when  in  that  condition,  but 
also  of  what  was  felt  and  known 
while  at  the  ordinary  grade  of  intel- 
ligence. 

The  analogy  pointed  to  is  that 
whereas  we  living  men  and  women, 
while  associated  with  this  mortal 
organism,  are  ignorant  of  whatever 
experience  our  larger  selves  may 
have  gone  through  in  the  past — yet 
when  we  wake  out  of  this  present 
materialised  condition,  and  enter 
the  region  of  larger  consciousness, 
we  may  gradually  realise  in  what  a 
curious  though  legitimate  condition 
of  ignorance  we  now  are;  and  may 
become  aware  of  our  fuller  posses- 
sion, with  all  that  has  happened  here 
and  now  fully  remembered  and  in- 
84 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

corporated  as  an  additional  expe- 
rience into  the  wide  range  of  knowl- 
edge which  that  larger  entity  must 
have  accumulated  since  its  intelli- 
gence and  memory  began.  The 
transition  called  death  may  thus  be 
an  awaking  rather  than  a  sleeping; 
it  may  be  that  we,  still  involved  in 
mortal  coil,  are  in  the  more  dream- 
like and  unreal  condition: — 

"Peace,   peace!  he  is  not  dead,  he  doth  not 

sleep — 
He   hath   awakened   from    the    dream   of 

life— 

'Tis  we  who,  lost  in  stormy  visions,  keep 
With  phantoms  an  unprofitable  strife." 
(Shelley's  Adonais.) 

The  ideas  thus  briefly  indicated 
have  been  suggested  by  a  mass  of  un- 
familiar experience,  upon  which  it 
is  legitimate  to  speculate,  though 
quite  illegitimate  to  dogmatise;  but 
85 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

in  case  they  seem  too  fanciful  to  serve 
as  any  part  of  a  basis  for  human  im- 
mortality, it  may  be  well  to  show 
how  clearly  the  possibility  of  a 
larger  and  fuller  existence  than  the 
present  is  indicated  by  facts  with 
which  we  are  all  familiar. 

Argument  from  Genius. 

It  must  be  apparent  how  few  of 
our  faculties  can  really  be  accounted 
for  by  the  need  of  sustenance  and  by 
the  struggle  for  existence;  and  how 
those  necessary  faculties  and  powers 
naturally  assume  an  overweening 
importance  here  and  now,  from  the 
fact  that  they  are  so  specially  fitted 
to  our  present  surroundings.  So 
that  the  less  immediately  practical 
mental  and  spiritual  characteristics 
can  be  spoken  of  by  anthropologists 
as  if  they  were  of  the  nature  of  sports 
86 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

and  by-products,  not  in  the  direct 
line  of  evolutional  advance. 
But,  says  Myers: — 

"The  faculties  which  befit  the  material  en- 
vironment have  absolutely  no  primacy,  unless 
it  be  of  the  merely  chronological  kind,  over 
those  faculties  which  science  has  often  called 
by-products,  because  they  have  no  manifest 
tendency  to  aid  their  possessor  in  the  strug- 
gle for  existence  in  a  material  world.  The 
higher  gifts  of  genius — poetry,  the  plastic  arts, 
music,  philosophy,  pure  mathematics — all  of 
these  are  precisely  as  much  in  the  central 
stream  of  evolution — are  perceptions  of  new 
truth  and  powers  of  new  action  just  as  de- 
cisively predestined  for  the  race  of  man — as 
the  aboriginal  Australian's  faculty  for  throw- 
ing a  boomerang  or  for  swarming  up  a  tree 
for  grubs.  There  is,  then,  about  those  loftier 
interests  nothing  exotic,  nothing  accidental; 
they  are  an  intrinsic  part  of  that  ever-evolv- 
ing response  to  our  surroundings  which  forms 
not  only  the  planetary  but  the  cosmic  history 
of  all  our  race." 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

We  can  regard  these  higher  facul- 
ties, these  inspirations  of  genius  and 
the  like,  not  only  as  contributing  to 
our  best  moments  now,  but  as  fore- 
casts or  indications  of  something  still 
more  specially  appropriate  to  our 
surroundings  in  the  future — antici- 
pations of  worlds  not  realised — 
rudiments  of  what  will  develop  more 
fully  hereafter;  so  that  their  appar- 
ent incongruousness  and  occasional 
inconvenience,  under  present  mun- 
dane conditions,  are  quite  natural. 
Ultimately  they  may  be  found  to  be 
nearer  to  the  heart  of  things  than 
the  attributes  which  are  successful 
in  the  stage  to  which  this  world  has 
at  present  attained;  though  they  can 
only  exhibit  their  full  meaning  and 
attain  their  full  development  in  a 
higher  condition  of  existence, — 
whether  that  be  found  by  the  race 
88 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

on  this  planet  or  by  the  individual 
in  a  life  to  come. 

"An  often-quoted  analogy  has  here  a  closer 
application  than  is  commonly  apprehended. 
The  grub  comes  from  the  egg  laid  by  a 
winged  insect,  and  a  winged  insect  it  must 
itself  become;  but  meantime  it  must  for  the 
sake  of  its  own  nurture  and  preservation  ac- 
quire certain  larval  characters — characters 
sometimes  so  complex  that  the  observer  may 
be  excused  for  mistaking  that  larva  for  a  per- 
fect insect  destined  for  no  further  change  save 
death.  Such  larval  characters,  acquired  to 
meet  the  risks  of  a  temporary  environment,  I 
seem  to  see  in  man's  earthly  strength  and 
glory.  In  these  I  see  the  human  analogues  of 
the  poisonous  tufts  which  choke  the  captor — 
the  attitudes  of  mimicry  which  suggest  an  ab- 
sent sting — the  'death's  head'  coloration  which 
disconcerts  a  stronger  foe." 

For  the  triumphs  of  natural  selec- 
tion, then,  we  must  look  not  to  the 
spiritual   faculties  and  endowments 
89 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

of  the  race,  but  to  the  business-like 
masterfulness  which  makes  one  man 
a  conqueror  and  another  man  a  mil- 
lionaire. These  we  can  regard  as 
larval  characters,  of  special  service 
in  the  present  stage  of  existence,  but 
destined  to  be  discarded,  or  modi- 
fied almost  out  of  recognition,  in 
proportion  as  a  higher  state  is  at- 
tained. This  I  take  to  be  the  deep 
meaning  of  the  Gospel  sentence  be- 
ginning "How  hardly!" 

But  to  continue  Myers's  biolog- 
ical parable: — 

"Meantime  the  adaptation  to  aerial  life  is 
going  on;  something  of  the  imago  or  perfect 
insect  is  performed  within  the  grub;  and  in 
some  species,  even  before  they  sink  into  their 
transitorial  slumber,  the  rudiments  of  wings 
still  helpless  protrude  awkwardly  beneath  the 
larval  skin.  Those  who  call  Shelley,  for  in- 
stance, 'a  beautiful  but  ineffectual  angel  beat- 
ing his  wings  in  the  void,'  may  adopt  if  they 
90 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

choose,  this  homelier  but  exacter  parallel. 
Shelley's  special  gifts  were  no  more  by-pro- 
ducts of  Shelley's  digestive  system  than  the 
wings  are  by-products  of  the  grub"  (Myers, 
i.,  p.  97)- 

The  meaning,  you  see,  is  that  they 
are  in  the  direct  line  of  evolution, 
when  the  whole  of  existence  is  taken 
into  account;  and  that  similarly  in 
the  evolution  of  genius  we  are  watch- 
ing the  emergence  of  unguessed  po- 
tentialities from  the  primal  germ, 
— the  first  revealings 

"Of  faculties,  displayed  in  vain,  but  born 
To  prosper  in  some  better  sphere." 

( Browning's  Paracelsus. ) 

Moreover,  what  is  true  for  the  in- 
dividual must  be  true  also  in  some 
measure  for  the  race.  Embryology 
teaches  us  that  each  organism  rap- 
idly recapitulates  or  epitomises,  amid 
how  different  conditions,  its  ances- 
91 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

tral  past  history.  It  is  legitimate  to 
extend  the  same  idea  to  the  future, 
and  to  regard  the  progress  of  the  in- 
dividual and  the  progress  of  the  race 
as  in  some  degree  concurrent;  since 
their  potentialities  are  similar, 
though  their  surroundings  will  be 
different.  This  argument,  so  far  as 
I  know,  is  novel,  but  not  undeserving 
of  attention. 

Argument  from  Mental  Pathology. 

And  as  to  the  disintegrations  of 
personality, — the  painful  defects  of 
will,  the  lapses  of  memory,  the  losses 
of  sensation — such  as  are  manifested 
by  the  hysteric  patients  of  the  Sal- 
petriere  and  other  hospitals, — the 
lesson  to  be  learnt  from  those  patho- 
logical cases  is  not  one  of  despair  at 
the  weakness  and  ghastly  imperfec- 
tions possible  to  humanity;  rather, 
92 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

on  this  view,  it  is  one  of  hope  and 
inspiration.  For  they  point  to  the 
possibility  that  our  present  condition 
may  be  as  much  below  an  attainable 
standard  as  the  condition  of  these 
poor  patients  is  below  what  by  a  nat- 
ural convention  we  have  agreed  to 
regard  as  the  "normal"  state.  We 
might  indeed  feel  bound  to  regard  it 
not  only  as  normal  but  as  ultimate, 
were  it  not  that  some  specimens  of 
our  race  have  already  transcended 
it,  have  shown  that  genius,  almost 
superhuman,  is  possible  to  man,  and 
have  thereby  foreshadowed  the  ex- 
istence of  a  larger  personality  for  us 
all.  Nay,  they  have  done  more, — 
for  in  thus  realising  in  the  flesh  some 
of  the  less  accessible  of  human  at- 
tributes, they  have  become  the  first- 
fruits  of  a  brotherhood  higher  than 
the  human;  we  may  hail  them  as 
93 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

the  forerunners  of  a  nobler  race. 
Such  a  race,  I  venture  to  predict, 
will  yet  come  into  existence,  not  only 
in  the  vista  of  what  may  seem  to 
some  of  us  an  unattractive  and  un- 
substantial future,  but  here  in  the 
sunshine  on  this  planet  Earth. 

"Prognostics  told 

Man's  near  approach ;  so  in  man's  self  arise 
August  anticipations,  symbols,  types 
Of  a  dim  splendour  ever  on  before." 

For  as  the  hysteric  stands  in  com- 
parison with  us  ordinary  men,  so 
perhaps  do  we  ordinary  men  stand 
in  comparison  with  a  not  impossible 
ideal  of  faculty  and  of  self-control. 
"Might  not,"  says  Myers, 

"Might  not  all  the  historic  tale  be  told, 
mutato  nomine^  of  the  whole  race  of  mortal 
men?  What  assurance  have  we  that  from 
some  point  of  higher  vision  we  men  are  not 
as  these  shrunken  and  shadowed  souls?  Sup- 
94 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

pose  that  we  had  all  been  a  community  of 
hysterics,  all  of  us  together  subject  to  these 
shifting  losses  of  sensation,  these  inexplicable 
gaps  of  memory,  these  sudden  defects  and  pa- 
ralyses of  movement  and  of  will.  Assuredly 
we  should  soon  have  argued  that  our  actual 
powers  were  all  with  which  the  human  organ- 
ism was  or  could  be  endowed.  .  .  .  Nay, 
if  we  had  been  a  populace  of  hysterics  we 
should  have  acquiesced  in  our  hysteria.  We 
should  have  pushed  aside  as  a  fantastic  en- 
thusiast the  fellow-sufferer  who  strove  to  tell 
us  that  this  was  not  all  that  we  were  meant 
to  be.  As  we  now  stand, — each  one  of  us 
totus,  teres,  atque  rotundus  in  his  own  esteem, 
— we  see  at  least  how  cowardly  would  have 
been  that  contentment,  how  vast  the  ignored 
possibilities,  the  forgotten  hope.  Yet  who  as- 
sures us  that  even  here  and  now  we  have 
developed  into  the  full  height  and  scope  of 
our  being?  A  moment  comes  when  the  most 
beclouded  of  these  hysterics  has  a  glimpse  of 
the  truth.  A  moment  comes  when,  after  a 
profound  slumber,  she  wakes  into  an  instant 
dair — a  flash  of  full  perception,  which  shows 
her  as  solid,  vivid  realities  all  that  she  has 
95 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

in  her  bewilderment  been  apprehending  phan- 
tasmally  as  a  dream.  ...  Is  there  for 
us  also  any  possibility  of  a  like  resurrection 
into  reality  and  day?  Is  there  for  us  any 
sleep  so  deep  that  waking  from  it  after  the 
likeness  of  perfect  man  we  shall  be  satisfied; 
and  shall  see  face  to  face;  and  shall  know 
even  as  also  we  are  known?" 

Whatever  may  be  the  answer  to 
this  question,  it  is  undoubtedly  true 
now — and  that  it  is  true  is  largely 
owing  to  him  and  his  co-workers — 
that  "these  disturbances  of  person- 
ality are  no  longer  for  us — as  they 
were  even  for  the  last  generation — 
mere  empty  marvels,  which  the  old- 
fashioned  sceptic  would  often  plume 
himself  on  refusing  to  believe.  On 
the  contrary,  they  are  beginning  to 
be  recognised  as  psycho-pathological 
problems  of  the  utmost  interest; — no 
one  of  them  exactly  like  another, 
and  no  one  of  them  without  some 

Q6 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

possible    aperqu    into    the    intimate 
structure  of  man." 

Religious  Objections. 

Whatever  objections  to  the  above 
argument  may  be  adduced  from  the 
side  of  science — and  there  are  sure 
to  be  many,  for  free  criticism  is  its 
natural  atmosphere, — there  is  one 
from  the  side  of  religion — more  often 
felt  than  expressed  perhaps — which 
I  must  in  conclusion  briefly  notice : — 

Objection  is  sometimes  taken 
against  any  attempt  being  made 
gradually  to  arrive  at  what  in  proc- 
ess of  time  may  come  to  be  regarded 
as  a  scientific  proof  of  such  a  thing 
as  immortality;  on  the  ground  that 
it  isTan  encroachment  on  the  region 
of  faith,  a  presumptuous  interfer- 
ence with  what  ought  to  be  treated 
as  the  territory  of  religion  alone. 
97 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

To  meet  these  objectors  on  their 
own  ground,  they  might  be  reminded 
of  such  texts  as  2  Pet.  i.  5,  Prov.  xxv. 
2,  as  well  as  of  the  still  more  author- 
itative encouragement  to  investiga- 
tion contained  in  Luke  xi.  9  and  in 
i  John  i.  5;  the  latter,  or  indeed 
both,  being  an  expression  of  the 
basal  postulate  of  the  man  of  sci- 
ence, namely,  the  ultimate  intelligi- 
bility of  the  Universe. 

But,  after  all,  an  objection  of  this 
kind  can  only  be  felt,  first  by  those 
who  think  that  knowledge  is  the  en- 
emy of  belief,  instead  of  its  strength- 
ener  and  supporter,  and  second  by 
those  who  unconsciously  fear  that 
the  domain  of  religion  is  finite,  and 
who  therefore  resent  encroachments 
as  diminishing  its  already  too  re- 
stricted area.  It  cannot  be  felt  by 
people  who  realise  that  the  domin- 
98 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

ion  of  religion  is  unlimited,  and  that 
there  is  infinite  scope  for  faith,  how- 
ever far  knowledge — real  and  accu- 
rate scientific  knowledge — extends 
its  boundaries.  The  enlargement  of 
those  boundaries  is  all  gain ;  for  thus 
the  one  area  is  increased  while  the 
other  is  not  diminished.  Infinity 
cannot  be  diminished  by  subtraction. 
No  such  objection  to  the  spread  of 
knowledge  was  felt  by  that  inspired 
writer  who  hoped  for  the  time  when 
"the  earth  shall  be  full  of  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  Lord,  as  the  waters  cover 
the  sea." 

Whatever  science  can  establish, 
that  it  has  a  right  to  establish :  more 
than  a  right,  it  has  a  duty.  What- 
ever science  can  examine  into,  that 
it  has  a  right  to  examine  into.  If 
there  be  things  which  we  are  not  in- 
tended to  know,  be  assured  that  we 

99 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

shall  never  know  them :  we  shall  not 
know  enough  about  them  even  to 
ask  a  question  or  start  an  inquiry. 
/'The  intention  of  the  universe  is  not 
going  to  be  frustrated  by  the  insig- 
nificant efforts  of  its  own  creatures. 
If  we  refrain  from  examination  and 
inquiry,  for  no  better  reason  than  the 
fanciful  notion  that  perhaps  we  may 
be  trespassing  on  forbidden  ground, 
such  hesitation  argues  a  pitiful  lack 
of  faith  in  the  good-will  and  friend- 
liness and  power  of  the  forces  that 
make  for  righteousness. 

Let  us  study  all  the  facts  that  are 
open  to  us,  with  a  trusting  and  an 
open  mind;  with  care  and  candour 
testing  all  our  provisional  hypothe- 
ses, and  with  slow  and  cautious  ver- 
ification making  good  our  steps  as 
we  proceed.  Thus  may  we  hope  to 
reach  out  further  and  ever  further 
100 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL 

into  the  unknown;  sure  that  as  we 
grope  in  the  darkness  we  shall  en- 
counter no  clammy  horror,  but  shall 
receive  an  assistance  and  sympathy 
which  it  is  legitimate  to  symbolise  as 
a  clasp  from  the  hand  of  Christ  him- 
self. 


101 


™""'™'     "  °" 

OVERDUE. 


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